Disk Repair Boot from OSX Disc...

Have a bad issue: my iMac has been found (using disk verify) to be corrupt. It tells me to boot from the installation disc to repair. Only problem is my DVD SuperDrive is dead! How can I boot from a disc if the drive won't mount? I've used three other external drives and none are recognized.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!!

Hi Gully, I agree with iyacyas
{quote:title=iyacyas wrote:}If you have another Mac to use you can place the sick Mac into Target Disk Mode and plug it into the good Mac via firewire and run DU against it from their.{quote}
See > http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=198
and > http://www.selfreliantfilm.com/?p=143
Even if you can't repair the drive from the MacBook Pro in TDM, you should be able to move your user files to either the MacBook Pro or an External HD until you can repair or replace the iMac.
Dennis

Similar Messages

Corrupt Boot disc - how do I boot from OSX disc to run Repair Disc?

I have just run Verify Disc and it has identified problems which requires me to boot from my OSX disc and run Repair disc.
I think I do this by switching on while holding down C....is that right?
ALSO I can only find my Leopard boot discs and I am currently running Snow Leopard....do I NEED to use the Snow Leopard discs to boot up?
Thanks in advanced....worried!

Unfortunate that your HD and Time Capsule are playing up at the same time, to say the least.
Hopefully your data will be salvageable, and there are several software options to try, here's a couple:
free (I think) http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35373/disk-drill
and paid for http://download.cnet.com/Data-Rescue/3000-2094_4-211375.html
I've not used either, but the paid for app may look pricey but it seems highly recommended byt those that have used it.
Have you tried re-booting the Time Capsule - still seems hard to believe that's gone down as well. Good luck.

Format issues- won't boot from OSX disc

Help!
I've been having some issues with my iBook G4 recently (it seems every program will randomly quit unexpectedly and it's generally rather slow) so I was thinking I would just wipe the drive and start afresh.
But I can't seem to boot from the OSX install disc. There's an option in the disc itself to restart and that didn't do anything and pressing "c" while restarting still starts things up normally. I've tried zapping NVRAM, PRAM, I went through OF and did reset-all and set-defaults (I'm not even sure if that was necessary- I'm desperate!) and nothing will work.
Help, please!

In order to erase your internal hard drive, you have to be booted from something else. I think you could do this from another Mac in FireWire Target Disk Mode, but I have never done this myself.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Is there a reason you don't want to use FireWire?
The biggest problem still seems to be that either your disc or your optical drive is not working properly. Even if you do succeed in erasing the drive, there is still the problem of reinstalling the OS. I think there are methods of doing this with FireWire Target Disk Mode, but I have just never done it myself, so I hesitate to give any instructions.
If you can, you might see if you can borrow an external optical drive and see if you can boot using that. If so, you can erase and reformat your internal drive using Disk Utility and reinstall the OS that way. If an external optical drive won't work, there may be a problem with your disc.
Good luck!

Can't boot from OSX disc...

I recently installed a 3rd HD. When I attempted to format it, I was unable to startup using the X disc. It would boot up in 9.1 off my HD. I was able to boot from the OS9 disc and format the new HD but now I can only see it while running in 9 and not in X. Anybody know how to boot off the X disc? I was hoping that if I can format the new HD from the OSX disc maybe that would help???

Are you saying that it is impossible for any beige to run master/slave configurations in os x?
It is a little more subtle than that.
1) If you have duplicate masters on a cable, when Darwin (the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X) wakes up and looks around, it will declare both Masters unusable. If Darwin does not activate them, it's as if they are not there to Mac OS X.
Darwin uses built-in Disk Drivers that are completely different from those in Mac OS 9. Users no longer have the benefit of all the extra forgiveness built into the traditional Mac OS 9 Drivers over the years. This has produced a rash of superstitions that various features "do not work under Mac OS X." The truth is that you must have hardware that meets the letter of the law to work in Mac OS X, it is no longer forgiving.
2) If you have a drive accidentally set to Slave, Mac OS X generally will not install to it or Boot from it. Mac OS 9 may be perfectly happy with it.
and Allan, thanks for your support!

Can not boot from OSX disc

I recently partitioned my internal drive with an 80 gig partition to run Ubuntu , removed Ubuntu and now can not resize hd to recover the 80 gig that I used , there was a program with this Ubuntu install called rEFIt that was installed for the dual boot , My problem is that Itunes keeps crashing and I have spent somewhere around 8 hours trying to fix this issue and in the process I discovered that I now can not boot from the osx disc but I can boot from the Ubuntu disc , what can I do to correct this issue or is there anything that I can do to correct this and recover the 80 gig that I used ?

The only solution was to erase hd and restore from time machine backup......
According to everything that I have seen , read and tried when you partition the mac hd the way that mac is designed it will lock the hd thus preventing any access even using the startup disc to repair. As far as restoring everything after the erase and reinstall of the OSX that was easy and painless. FOR ANYONE WHO DOES NOT BACKUP THEIR DATA THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD!!!!
Once OSX is reinstalled the migration assistant will ask if you want to restore from a backup , if you have time machine or any other sort of backup simply choose the one you wish to restore from and continue , must admit I was a bit hesitant at first , I must say that everything restored with the exception of some settings that I have had to restore but they were not major settings , after the backup is restored simply run update check and reinstall all updates , may need to do this a couple of times.
Depending on the amount of data you have will determine the length of time for restore (500 gigs about 6 hrs.) but it will restore user account settings , connection settings and network settings.
Hope this will help if anyone has experienced the same problem.

Is there any way to browse a USB disk while booted from OSX install disk?

My hard drive died on me the other day (the mac partition anyway) and I'm trying to use a data recovery program to get my data back. I have the application on my USB key, and I assumed I'd then be able to use the OS X installer disk to boot up and then run this program from the USB drive but the installer doesn't let me browse folders or quit... Is there any way to do this? I don't have another mac to firewire or anything so it's either this or order a recovery program on a bootable disk, which I really don't want to do as I need this done fast... Any suggestions?

Your utility for data recovery usually should have come with a Mac bootable DVD with its own application on it. If it didn't, contact them for a disc that will boot your Mac with the utility on it. Your other option is to get a Firewire hard drive, partition it, and install the operating system there on one partition large enough for the operating system, while leaving the other partition large enough to recover the entire unbootable hard drive.
Partitioning is described here, and will WIPE your entire hard drive:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61301

Possibly dumb Q: Running Disk Utility when booted from OSX Install DVD

Hey there Mac folks. I was wondering about this:
I'm running OSX 10.4.5 on a 2x2.0GHz G5 with 4 internal drives. (I stuffed 2 into the PCI bay with a G5Jam bracket kit.) I use Disk Utility v10.5.3, which is current for OSX 10.4.5, when doing basic maintenance/repair on my secondary drives, as well as to repair permissions and do a verify (but not repair) on my startup drive. When I have to do a repair on my startup drive, barring the use of other 3rd party apps, I have to boot from my OS 10.4 DVD, and use the Disk Utility there. However, since it's a 10.4.0, the Disk Utility there is v 10.5.0.
So, the question: Should I care? Any chance of a problem? I know the Disk Utility's repairing doesn't really care what OS, if any, is installed on a drive it's repairing (at least I think that's true?), but I have no idea what changes/improvemnts have been made to Disk Utility. Actually, I've always wondered about this sort of thing since OS 10.0.
I think I can make a copy of my Tiger install DVD with the newer version of Disk Utility inserted onto it, replacing the old one with v10.5.3. I don't know if it's worth the trouble though. I figure that for the newbie users, Apple would have thought of this, and addressed it if it were a potential problem. (Despite this Q, I'm not a newbie!)

Hi, JonYo.
Booting from your Tiger Install DVD to Verify or Repair your startup disk is fine. No worries!
The major changes in Disk Utility from 10.5 to 10.5.3 were:
• Better handling of overlapped extent allocation errors. Third-party utilities, such as Alsoft’s DiskWarrior may still be better at this task.
• The addition of live verification: the ability to Verify your startup disk while booted from such. One of the intermediate releases
The key point is to only use Tiger-compatible disk utilities with Tiger.
If you've implemented a proper backup and recovery solution where you are creating a bootable duplicate of your startup disk, you could also start up from the duplicate and run the latest version of Disk Utility on such to Verify or Repair your usual startup disk. For advice on the backup and recovery solution I employ, see my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ.
Computing without a comprehensive backup and recovery solution is like driving without auto insurance.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

In Lion, how would a user REPAIR disk without a disk to boot from?

In Lion, how would a user REPAIR Disk without a disk to boot from? It's cool to download Lion from App Store, but I think they need to solve how they will repair disk without optical disk to boot from. I have had to repair disk in with the disk utility around 5-10 times in the past.

Kappy wrote:
No doubt, but who's going to delete their installer? That would be a tad stupid don't you think?
Well it should be stupid, but people do it anyway not realizing it's importance later when something goes wrong.
Kappy wrote:
We'll need a GIF with a Bill Engvall "Here's your sign."
Not familiar with Bill Engvall's acts I'm afraid, I know it's terrible.
Kappy wrote:
I guess we shouldn't forget the recovery partition. But why confuse the issue.
That does confuse the issue, a bootable DVD is for installing the operating system after a hard drive replacement, which also will include the recovery partition.
Recovery parititions are a great idea for Windows as it fails often, but hard drives fail more often in Mac's than the operating system.

IMac crashed! Only get partial boot from OSX disk one

Booting from OSX disk 1, goes as far as a blue screen with no icons or menu. Boot with D key for hardware test. Test ok.
At a loss what to do next.
David

Does Seem so, or the Internal Drive is so messed up it's interfering, try this...
Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Mac Pro 2008 won't boot from install disc - black screen

Hello,
I recently purchased a new hard drive to replace the original that came with my Mac Pro 2008. I was able to format the new drive using Disk Utility. I am now at the point where I need to install OS X onto the new drive, but the computer refuses to boot from the disc. The disc is recognized by the computer (I can access the disc and am able to use the BootCamp applications, etc.) but I just get a black screen when trying to boot directly from the disc. The computer boots fine otherwise.
I have tried the following:
I have tried using both the gray install disc that came with the computer and the Snow Leopard Install DVD disc.
I have tried booting using the "C" key and the "option" key but still receive a black screen following the chime (I've held these down for several minutes).
I have tried restarting from either install disc using the Bootcamp Assistant.
I have tried running the installation software to get it to restart from the disc.
I have tried a combination of the drives, i.e. trying to boot from the discs with just the new drive installed, just the original drive installed, and with both in bay1 and 2.
Everything results in the computer starting up, hearing the chime, and then nothing..just black screen. I have the original drive partitioned with BootCamp with OSX Snow Leopard and Windows 7 installed (I don't know that that matters).
I am at a loss as to what to try next. It doesn't seem like the superdrive because it is recognizing the disc, it just won't boot from it.
Any help is appreciated, thank you.

Clone should be a must and easy to do and learn (learn by doing! 2)
6800 would 'qualify' as 5x70 series flashed etc and same rule: 10.6.5
In the past there was 10.4.6, 10.5.6, but not 10.6.6 - even though strong need for such a DVD.
10.6.8 DVD would be excellent
Lion or ML - buy, download, make an installer flash card would be what I would do at this point.
Then keep both - dual boot as you learn and test and see what ML does and waht you had that required Rosetta to support PowerPC. See www.roaringapps.com about that.
With Carbon Coyp Cloner - was share, now commercial, great utility been around since 10.2.2 at least - this time 2003. 10 yrs.
You can clone the system folders, you can even selectively choose. You can skip copy of most of your home account and do that separately to another drive if you want.
Clone Windows with Paragon or WinClone and use Windows 7 or 8 DVD to do a system repair (automatic) or to edit the BCD file. It can and should - and all you do is boot Windows 7 DVD w/ only the one drive present and go at it. Piece of cake. But yes, Windows gets fussy if you change or remove or move. BCD to the rescue. A proper program for cloning like Paragon's "Clone OS" meant for going from disk drives to SSDs, knows that and how to do it.
Back to how to clone etc:
Clone
Disk utility has RESTORE which will also clone your system but not the Lion Recovery partition. Oddly Apple did not 'endorse' making bootable clone of the system which works too but most choose Carbon Copy Cloner - it works more consistently; it allows for smart update of the backup volume. Both can backup to a sparse disk image if desired.
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
http://www.bombich.com/software/updates/ccc-3.5.html
OS X Lion Install to Different Drive
How to create an OS X Lion installation disc MacFixIt
Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard
http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/
Create an OS X Lion Install disc
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc
How to clone your system:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
http://www.macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120711_2-MacPro-internal-clone-ba ckup.html
The DVD is dependent on your hardware. And your hardware changed. The drivers for the 5780 and 6xxx are bundled in the OS and lacking. Minimum build thing.
Put the new drive anywhere you want. Does not matter. Can move it later. Can be drive bay 0-3 or a Firewire external or under the DVD drive.
When you clone pull the old drive and boot from the newly cloned.
After that keep a backup clone around all the time. Takes less than 10 minutes to do a smart update to copy just the changes to keep it current. So you have working copy of the system. I keep Clone "A" that I keep "as was" the system as of last month or whatever (like 10.7.4 before upgrade to 7.5).
Comes easier after doing it once and have all your ducks in a row.

Can't boot from OSX and may have a virus

I'm having a similar problem as Davo21 in "computer won't boot up in os x". After running Norton System Works to try to resolve an issue that I was having with my computer, I'm getting a message, "/etc/master.passwd:not a directory" on a black screen when I try to start up.
It started in early December after I downloaded some stuff off the internet and it seemed like I might have picked up a virus. I know, that's not supposed to happen with OSX, but my computer started doing wierd things like switching out icons for whole types of files - i.e., .wav files would show up with a totally different icon. Restarting solved that problem, but I noticed that on both my wife's and my computer (both Macs - hers a Single core Intel Mini running OSX 10.4 and mine a G3 700MHz running 10.3.9) the internet was running exceptionally slow, while on my work computer (a Dell PC running Windows XP) it was running just fine. All three computers are networked, so I surmised that something was affecting the Unix system but not the Windows, but when I ran Norton Anti-virus, it came up clean. More wierd things kept happening, so last week I decided to run Norton Disk Doctor and it changed thousands of directory settings and now my computer won't boot up from my main boot drive with OSX 10.3.9. I've run the Disk Utilities on the 10.3 Install Disk and I've run Disk Warrior and they both say that the boot drive is repaired, but I still get the same message when I try to start up normally.
I have several partitions on my original drive and several more on the additional 240GB hard drive that I installed a couple of years ago, so I can boot up from an old copy of OSX 10.2 on another partition. The latest wierd thing is that now one of my other partitions on the original hard drive won't mount.
My questions are:
1) How do I get back to being able to boot from OSX 10.3?
2) Where can I get help to figure out what's going on with my computer and how to remedy it?
I've been looking at some of the information on the Leap-A malware and it seems like there are some similarities, however I'm running OSX 10.3.9 and not 10.4.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
G4 700MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G4 700MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

DMcSantaFe,
as was said before Norton Utilities and Disk Doctor were discontinued almost 3 years ago (for some very good reasons!). It caused much more trouble than it solved.
Here are the articles:
Symantec discontinues Mac Norton Utilities, SystemWorks
Norton Utilities, SystemWorks development halted
TMO Scoop - Symantec Confirms Norton Utilities & SystemWorks' Demise [Updated]
Tech Tool Pro and DiskWarrior are presently the most reliable utilities. For more information on regular housekeeping read this: MacOS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance
Unfortunately Norton usually damages the file system beyond repair. The only cure is a reinstall.
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

IMac won't boot from install disc

My iMac has been running a little slow the past two days and so I ran Disk Utility. DU reported that I had the incorrect number of thread records and an invalid volume count. It instructed me to repair the disk by booting from the install disc. The problem is that when I try to boot from the install disc (after I choose the disc from the options), I just get a gray screen with the apple logo on it. Nothing else happens, no disc activity, nothing.
Anyone have any ideas as to how to get my iMac to boot from the disc and, ultimately, to get Repair Disc running from DU?
Thanks,
Rich

It should only take a minute or so at most to boot from the DVD.
If your sure you have the correct Install Disk for that iMac, I'd start over. Then if it still doesn't work then perhaps a trip to your Local Apple Service Provider with the Disk or Disk and iMac is in order.
http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Alternately using the correct Disk as per the following article, see if you can run the Apple Hardware Test? > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

Will Not Boot from Install Disc & 4SNS/1/40000000: TG0D - Thermal Sensor?

*Will Not Boot from Install Disc*
I used the "option key" approach with the gray start up disk. At first it ejected the start up disk. Then I nudged the disk back in the machine and it showed on the screen as an option. I clicked on the start up disk image and it finally loaded.
But, it won't accept the start up disk when holding down the "C" key at restart.
*4SNS/1/40000000: TG0D*
I did an Apple Hardware Test and received the following diagnostic:
Version: 3A121
Test Suite: Extended Test
Loop Count: 2
Result: Failed
Failure code: 4SNS/1/40000000: TG0D
*Thermal Sensor*
A search for the failure code 4SNS/1/40000000: TG0D brought up an Apple Discussion topic entry stating: That error code indicates a problem with a thermal sensor. It could be not working or possibly not connected. You will need to take it to Apple for repair.
Would a thermal sensor have anything to do with it not starting up when holding down the "C" key at restart? What are thermal sensor problem symptoms?
*User File Folder Opened Up*
The machine also starts up with my user file folder opened up rather than with a blank screen as it normally should
I completed a DiskWarrior rebuild on the disk and verify disk shows it is fine.
Any suggestions on what to do next with these issues?

The answer was in your post: "You will need to take it to Apple for repair."

Will Not Boot From Install Disc

Upon a Verify Disk check I received a "Volume Header needs minor repair" notice.
Because it is necessary to boot from another disc to repair the header, I attempted to boot from the install disc. I tried restarts holding down the "C" or by selecting the start up disc in System Preferences/Startup Disk. I've tried each of the these several times to no avail. The machine will not start from the install disc. It keeps starting from the machine hard drive.
Are there any other suggestions how to force it to start from a startup disk?

The installer disc problem is still a concern but in the meantime you can try booting to Safe Mode. Run Disk Utility again from Safe Mode and see if it still reports problems. Boot normally afterward.
[Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393]
[What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392]
[Safe Boot takes longer than normal startup|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107394]
[Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5- Computer shuts down during Safe Boot|http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24054]
Safe boot mode runs a directory check command similar to that used by Disk Utility's repair. In Tiger it ignores some stored information (cache) that is normally read that speeds up the boot process, and it moves some other caches to the trash. It also uses only System fonts and disables all Startup Items, third party items, and any Login Items.

Replaced hard drive, now can't boot from install disc to restore backup

Yesterday, my hard drive died (disk warrior informed me, that HD had irrecoverable errors, and my iMac would shut down unless it was booted from the Disk Warriorr disc).
Today, I have a new internal HD professionally installed. And when I brought it home, and installed Snow I got an error at the end of the installation "OS could not be installed, restart or choose start up disk" or something to that effect. However, on licking OK I got the snow music, and welcome movie nd eerything seemed to be working fine.
I can log in normally and have get to my desktop, but on trying to boot from the Snow Leopard disk (10.6), I get to the gray screen with the apple logo and hang. I have tried resetting Pram/firmware and also ran the fdisk command (twice).
It seems too much of a concidence that my hard drive and now my disc drive would die all in span of two days? I can hear the disc noise, but as I mentioned I cant get beyond the gray screen on trying to boot from the disc.
Suggestions?
Late Nov '07 intel iMac. And I did update the OS to 10.6.4. Install disc is 10.4.

Return it to the repair station.

Disk Repair Boot from OSX Disc...

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